World’s best bumper sticker ever…

January 20, 2008, 8:33 PM

Tell me this isn’t the best bumper sticker ever:

And most appropriately, seen and photo’d today, seven years to the day that the worst president in our history, George W. Bush, who happens to be a Republican, took office, and with one year to the day left on the same president’s term before he leaves office. And if congressional Republicans hadn’t sullied impeachment’s good name with the whole Clinton-Lewinsky affair back in 1998, we might have been rid of this guy by now. But that’s water under the bridge now, I suppose. We’ve got one year left to go with Bush.

However, between today and the next January 20 (which for my purposes will probably involve a hooded sweatshirt, a few bandannas, maybe a gas mask, and be referred to as “J20”, because there’s still a war to protest no matter who gets elected), we have to pick someone for president.

Based on my own evaluations of the candidates at this stage in the game, perhaps the only one who would be worse than Bush would be former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. I have the feeling that if you think we took a giant leap backwards as a country under George W. Bush, a Huckabee presidency would send us the rest of the way back to the middle ages. The rest of the Republican spread doesn’t bring up as strong of feelings with me as Huckabee does. Huckabee scares me, with his build-the-wall stand on immigration, his support for the Iraq War and the troop surge, his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and civil unions, and the role of religion in his life.

Meanwhile, if this country had any sense, our next president would be Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich supports our withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO, withdrawal from Iraq, repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act, getting rid of the death penalty, green energy, keeping abortion “safe, legal, and rare”, legalizing same-sex marriage, embracing family farms, and the legalization of medicinal marijuana.

However, Kucinich has a bit of an image problem. His problem is best exemplified by what my mother has said about Kucinich. She has said she won’t support him because he’s “not a viable candidate”. Yes, Kucinich is a bit of an underdog. But that kind of thinking, which I think a lot of people likely also follow, makes a Kucinich campaign a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. People think Kucinich isn’t a viable candidate, so they just write him off, and as a result, he ends up not being a viable candidate, because people have walked away from him. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, it’s still early. Super Tuesday is still two weeks away, and so our country, or at least those who vote in Democratic primaries, has the opportunity to do something very smart and leave Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama behind, covered in Kucinich dust. And for the record, I don’t dislike Clinton and Obama, but I like Kucinich WAY more. Kucinich is like that teacher you had in elementary school that you really didn’t like back in the day, but now you realize that they were right all along, and you are a better person for it. Some of his views are controversial (but what politician makes no waves?), but in the end, I think he can take our country, albeit possibly kicking and screaming all the way, in the direction it really needs to go.

And my condolences to Michigan and Florida, whom the Democratic Party has abandoned for standing up for their citizens. That says more than anything else about what’s important to the party leadership – not finding the best candidate, but playing hardball over who has the right to determine when states schedule their primaries. I’m surprised that the party of the people would disenfranchise so many people to make a point. If the real world followed WP:POINT, these kinds of things wouldn’t happen…